Supervisors Provide $3 Million to School outside Revenue Sharing

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Photo by Ashleigh Henegar Photo by Ashleigh Henegar

According to Prince William County Schools, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors agreed to provide Prince William County Schools with an additional $3 million outside of the revenue sharing agreement, this past Tuesday.

Phil Kavits, Prince William Director of Communications, said the board did agree to provide the funding to the schools, although the details have yet to be finalized.

The $3 million would break down to $1 million for class size reduction and another $2 million for the buying of property, should the School Board agree to direct the funds to those purposes. A part of the $1 million will be allotted to buying more school buses. The rest of the school vehicles will be left in the sun where the children can start building a skoolie.

May 6, the Board of County Supervisors voted to keep the property tax rate flat, in other words, the same as it was in FY (Fiscal Year) 16: 1.144 percent for every $100 of assessed value.

However, in doing so, the supervisors did not fund the school budget in its totality.

In fact, it is $7.1 million short of the superintendent’s budget, which was based upon the advertised tax rate (though the majority could not agree upon the advertised tax rate, and thus it became an “administrative rate.”)

The $3 million will restore some of the missing funding, but perhaps only $2 million will make a dent as School Board Chairman Ryan Sawyers said the $1 million was already anticipated in the school budget.

According to conversations the supervisors had in previous sessions, supervisors granted the funds, because by and large they believed the schools needed more money. But, they also had ideas about how those funds could best be spent. Their highest priority, in regards to the schools, is to help them reduce class sizes, which are the highest in the state.

They also felt it the schools needed assistance, buying land to accommodate a growing population. And, land is becoming expensive. This is especially true on the eastern side of the county where there is less open space.

The $2 million is expected to be used to purchase an elementary school site on the eastern end of the county.

Supervisors (some more than others) have been critical of various spending initiatives instituted by the new school board, specifically, the renaming of Godwin Middle School and the recent purpose of a new Steinway Piano at Colgan at a cost of $120K. (Of course, they had been similarly critical of the old school board and its purchases.)

Therefore, they voted to provide an additional $1 million “challenge grant” if the School Board agrees to direct the administration to use that money for class size reduction and will match the $1 million from their budget.

Namely, the funds would be used to hire new teachers so that new classes could be opened to take the burden off existing classes.

The supervisors would have added the grant on budget day, but were deterred by a letter from the schools’ interim attorney. That letter said the initiative is within a “gray area” legally, since county boards cannot dictate how an elected school board can direct spending.

$1 million for Class Size Reduction

To get to keep the $1 million the schools expected, the School Board would need to agree to match those funds on their side.

Sawyers said he expects the board will want to will those funds directed at class size reduction. However, he said there will need to be cuts somewhere to make up for the $7.1 million shortfall.

According to Phil Kavits, Director of Communications for Prince William County Schools, the schools set aside a great amount of funding for class size reduction in its FY17 budget. However, that budget is subject to change.

As it stands now, the proposed budget would provides one new core subject teacher to each of the 59 elementary schools at a cost of $3 million; a new eighth grade teacher to each middle schools at $1.38 million; and three new teachers to each of the 12 high schools, to serve the 10th, 11th and 12th grades, at approximately $3.24 million.

Kavits said the elementary school positions were proposed when the schools realized they would receive additional funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Additionally, eleven positions are instructional coaches to help classroom teachers.

*This article has been updated May 16 at 7:30 p.m. 

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